If time, and the state of the ice permit, it would be desirable that the expedition during this voyage should make some excursions towards the north, in order to ascertain whether land is not to be found between Cape Chelyuskin and the New Siberian group of islands, and between it and Wrangel's Land. From Behring's Straits the course will be shaped, with such stoppages as circumstances give rise to, for some Asiatic port, from which accounts may be sent home, and then onwards round Asia to Suez. Should the expedition be prevented from forcing a passage east of Cape Chelyuskin, it will depend on circumstances which it is difficult to foresee, whether it will immediately return to Europe, in which case the vessel with its equipment and crew may be immediately available for some other purpose, or whether it ought not to winter in some suitable harbour in the bays at the mouths of the Tajmur, Pjaesina, or Yenisej. Again, in case obstacles from ice occur east of Cape Chelyuskin, a harbour ought to be sought for at some convenient place on the north coast of Siberia, from which, during the following summer, opportunities would be found for important surveys in the Polar Sea, and during the course of the summer some favourable opening will also certainly occur, when southerly winds have driven the ice from the coast, for reaching Behring's Straits. Probably also, if it be necessary to winter, there will be opportunities of sending home letters from the winter station. [Illustration] [Footnote 1: The expeditions to Spitzbergen in 1868, to Greenland in 1870, to Spitzbergen in 1872-73, and to the Yenisej in 1875 and 1876. ] [Footnote 2: The first cargo of goods from Europe to the Yenisej was taken thither by me in the _Ymer_ in 1876. The first vessel that sailed from the Yenisej to the Atlantic was a sloop, _The Dawn_, built at Yeniseisk, commanded by the Russian merchant captain, Schwanenberg, in 1877. ] [Footnote 3: In order to obtain sufficient room for coal and provisions most of these tanks were taken out at Karlskrona. ] [Footnote 4: The consumption of coal, however, was reckoned by Captain Palander at twelve cubic feet or 0.3 cubic metre an hour, with a speed of seven knots. ] [Footnote 5: The preserved provisions were purchased part from Z. Wikstroem of Stockholm, part from J.D. Beauvois of Copenhagen. ] [Footnote 6: The potatoes were to be delivered at Gothenburg on the 1st July. In order to keep, they had to be newly taken up and yet _ripe_. They were therefore procured from the south through Mr. Carl W. Boman of Stockholm. Of these, certainly one of the best of all anti-scorbutics, we had still some remaining on our arrival at Japan. ]